electionpress

Thursday, May 31, 2007

AP - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's political courtship of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa landed her an early, influential endorsement this week that highlights the intense competition among presidential candidates for support within the growing Hispanic population.

Candidates in both major parties are reaching out to Hispanic voters with an intensity that speaks to the importance of the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group in the 2008 campaign.

Immigration reform is a touchstone issue for many Hispanics, particularly in cities like Los Angeles, which has strong cultural and economic ties to Mexico. California has as many as 3 million illegal immigrants, the most of any state.

Villaraigosa's support for Clinton rested in part on their agreement on the need for a federal law that would include a pathway to citizenship for many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, among other provisions.

The senator earlier hired Villaraigosa political adviser (and blog spin doctor to combat anti-Villaraigosa political activist Zuma Dogg) Michael Trujillo to run her California campaign and named state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a close friend of the mayor and another prominent Hispanic politician, a national co-chair of her campaign.

***** She also appointed Villaraigosa a national co-chair. *****

Villaraigosa's endorsement "is proof that the Clinton campaign's focus and strategy to win the Latino vote continues to grow stronger," the statement said.

TO EVERYONE READING AROUND THE NATION WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LOS ANGELES MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA HERE IS A POPULAR LA CITY HALL "INSIDERS" BLOG Mayor Sam's Sister City Blog

HILLARY CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIR FABIAN "NUCKLEHEAD" NUNEZ DECLARES YOU NEED THE HISPANIC VOTE TO WIN: "ASK ANGELIDES...AND IF YOU WANNA ADVANCE AN AGENDA FOR AMERICA YOU GOTTA INCLUDE THESE (LATINO) THINGS IN IT." - Nunez

COMPLETE CLIP TRANSCRIPT: "This is the most important gathering of Latinos across the country, in my own opinion, since the civil rights movement of the late 1960's. And what comes out of this conference, the positions that people take on issues with respect to housing; with respect to jobs; with respect to health care...all these things are going to be very, very critical...the environment...to the political agendas of those who want to "rub shoulders" with the Latinos in this country.

And in California, in particular, I can tell you, ask Phil Angeledis and he'll tell you; if he has the Latino vote, he'll win. Ask Governor Schwarzenegger and he'll tell you; if he gets 30% of the Latino vote, he thinks he can win the election. So the political power of "our" community has grown exponentially. [I didn't know he was elected to the Assembly to represent a "certain" community!?!]

It's time for use to not only look at the politics, but look at vehicles within...we can say, these are cohesive platform points that are important to Latinos...and if you want to advance an agenda for America, you gotta include these things in it.

And the beautiful thing about it is; there's no difference between the Latino agenda and the working class agenda for people in this country. So I think this is gonna set a very important precedent for the future, for not only the political movement of this country, but the particular platforms of the particular parties. So I'm excited for it." - California State Assembly President/Clinton Co-Chair, Fabian Nunez

Monday, May 7, 2007

Hillary Clinton has a coterie of influential advisers. There's her husband, über-Washington insider and former head of the Democratic National Committee Terry McAuliffe. There are A-list policy wonks like former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin. But perhaps the most important figure in the campaign is her pollster and chief strategist, Mark Penn, a combative workaholic. Penn is not yet a household name, but perhaps he should be. The campaign is polling constantly, and Penn's interpretation of the numbers will in large part decide her political direction.

Yet Penn is no ordinary pollster. Beyond his connections to the Clintons, he not only polls for America's biggest companies but also runs one of the world's premier PR agencies. This creates a dilemma for Hillary: Penn represents many of the interests whose influence candidate Clinton--in an attempt to appeal to an increasingly populist Democratic electorate--has vowed to curtail. Is what's good for Penn and his business good for Hillary's political career? And furthermore, can she convincingly claim to fight for the average American with Penn guiding strategy in her corner?

Despite the risks he poses, it's easy to figure out why Hillary clings to Penn. "They were the ones who said 'Make the '96 election about nothing except V-Chips and school uniforms,'" says a former Clinton adviser.

It was said that Penn was the only person who could get Bill Clinton and Bill Gates on the same phone line. Penn's largest client was Microsoft, and he saw no contradiction between working for both the plaintiff and the defense in what was at the time the country's largest antitrust case. A variety of controversial clients enlisted PSB. The firm defended Procter and Gamble's Olestra drug from charges that it caused anal leakage, blamed Texaco's bankruptcy on greedy jurors and market-tested genetically modified foods for Monsanto. Penn invented the concept of "inoculation," in which corporations are shielded from scandal through clever advertising and marketing. Selling an image, companies realized, was as important as winning a legislative favor. (continues....)

(...continued) A host of prominent Republicans fall under Penn's purview. B-M's Washington lobbying arm, BKSH & Associates, is run by Charlie Black, a leading GOP operative who maintains close ties to the White House, including Karl Rove, and was former partners with Lee Atwater, the political consultant who crafted the Willie Horton smear campaign used by George H.W. Bush against Michael Dukakis in 1988. Black regularly disparages the Clintons; he has called Hillary a "martyr figure" and said Bill "tearfully embraced...government preferences for [a] homosexual lifestyle." In recent years Black's clients have included the likes of Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the neocon right in the run-up to the war; Lockheed Martin; and Occidental Petroleum. In the summer of 2005 he landed a contract with the Lincoln Group, the disgraced PR firm that covertly placed US military propaganda in Iraqi news outlets. The agreement, according to Intelligence Online, allowed the Lincoln Group to "tap into BKSH's extensive contacts in the Republican administration." When asked by The New Yorker if there was too much cronyism in Iraq, Black responded, "I just wish I could find the cronies."

I know you are both well aware of the current economic and social crisis in Los Angeles, California caused by the broken system called LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District).

Both of you know that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa just spent the past year trying to blow that shady curveball Assembly Bill 1381 (Mayoral control of LAUSD, but it was so shady and unconstitutional (like most of what happens in Los Angeles City Hall, these days) that it got overturned in court (of course).

And now, newly appointed Superintendent David Brewer (who everyone seems to like, thus far) has basically delclared the school system is a COMPLETE disaster, beyone anyone’s wildest imagination.

And now that the Fabian “Nucklehead” Nunez AB 1381 school takeover bill has failed miserably, the politicians are trying to pick up the ball, but they are playing politics. And Zuma Dogg see NO solution in site.

Fellaz...I don’t have to tell you, Los Angeles is about one dropout away from having to be declared a FEDERAL DISASTER ZONE. I know LAUSD certainly should.

But the mayor seems to think just because the school system is more hazardous to public safety than a toxic waste dump -- that means HE should be able to take control. (Which is faulty logic.)

So here is an actual school reform motion, that Antonio Villaraigosa’s office is WELL AWARE of, as is Los Angeles City Council.

But LA City Hall is has kinda become the “Bad News Bears” of politics (see www.mayorsam.blogspot.com) and I wouldn’t trust them to subsitute teach first grade...let alone reform the largest local bueracratic mess in history.

So, can you please take a look at this and pick up the phone and tell these clowns running the City to stop collection campaign contributions for two seconds and DO SOMETHNG. ZUMA DOGG IS DELCARING THE LAUSD SCHOOL SYSTEM A LOCAL DISASTER AREA AND STATE AND FEDERAL EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED IMMEDIATLEY. Just because it is a man made disaster, does not mean this is not a local, state and national emergency demanding your immediate attention. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LAUSD CHARTER SCHOOL REFORM PLAN

Wanna be a politician? Here’s how you get elected into office: Promise both sides everything, then do nothing. By doing nothing you won’t piss off either side. Meanwhile, just tell both sides that you are working on it, but it’s the other guy’s fault; he just put it back to committee, or continued it for another 90 days until there can be a report on the benefit of an impact study. Then, when the report says, “An impact study is needed”, you just bought yourself another 90 days until the impact study is completed.

Although many politicians start off principled, and want to fight for change, and do all the best things for the community -- they quickly find out, once in office, it’s the financial backers who put them in office that run the show behind closed doors and at expensive dinners and functions.

Zuma Dogg calls it, “The Politicial Steamroll Machine”. You see, it’s not the elected officials who run the City (they are just four to eight year “blips” through town) -- it’s the financial backers with long-term connections and relationships in the City that have the influence and pull the strings and steer the votes.

And let me tell ya, you gotta make a lot of promises and payback a lot of favors, cause Mr./Ms. Billionaire financial backer may have all those relationships and connections throughout the City, State or Country -- but they don’t offer votes just cause the Billionaire-backer is such a great looking, really cool guy.

So let’s just say the newly elected official decides he/she is gonna clean up the corruption and start initiating motions that cut out someof the waste, or benefits something other than a financial special interest/payback?

Well, that political steamroll machine will backfire on you, pretty quickly. And it ain’t a very smooth ride downhill. It’s much easier to just go along for the luxurious ride. Cause at the end of the day, if it isn’t YOU rolling over and selling-out, someone else is just gonna be doing it anyway. And at least YOU’RE a really great guy/gal and will at least try and do one or two good things while you’re at it. Except, the Political Steamroll Machine won’t let you. They don’t leave a tip.

Remember, you can attend any City Council meeting and speak during “public comment” and tell em what you think. And it goes out on TV and the internet.

Here’s a little FIRST AMENDMENT CHECK I tried out this year. Pretty Funny. Check out all my “Zuma Dogg Fights City Hall” videos (political comedy) at www.youtube.com, or www.myspace.com and search “zuma dogg”.